Objects

Abstract

In recent years, scholars and others have increasingly considered family possessions within the framework of family histories. Especially in the aftermath of violent trauma and the break in continuity it signifies, inherited objects as tangible links to earlier generations can trigger familial memory work. Such object-based quests to explore the past make for fascinating relational life writing, as proven by the popular appeal of Edmund De Waal’s Hare with Amber Eyes (2010) and Nancy K. Miller’s What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past (2011). Both De Waal and Miller set out to explore the history behind certain objects — a collection of Japanese miniature sculptures, photographs, a mysterious land deed for a lot in Palestine, a postcard from Argentina, and a lock of hair — because without a narrative, these items are little more than signifiers for a story. In both cases, the search includes trips to former family homes and homelands, part of the ‘return’ journey phenomenon in which many Jews born into families formerly from Central and Eastern Europe partake.1 Symbolizing the loss of family, community, and culture — the lost world of upscale Jewish Vienna for de Waal, and the destroyed communities of Bratslav and Kishinev for Miller — family objects serve as the triggers and compasses of physical and metaphorical journeys into the past.